Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales
Care Standards Act 2000
Inspection Report
Core Assets Children`s Services - Disability - Cymru
Bryn Business Centre
Bryn Lane
Wrexham
LL13 9UT
Type of Inspection – Focused
Date(s) of inspection –17 March 2015
Date of publication – 24 April 2015
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Summary
About the service
Core Assets Children’s Services, Disability Cymru is registered to provide domiciliary care
for children and young people with disabilities aged between 0 and 18 years, and young
adults up to the age of 25 years, throughout Wales.
Core Assets Children’s Services Limited is the registered provider and Sally Melbourne is
the person appointed by the company as responsible individual. David Steven Hefin
Daniels is the registered manager. The agency operates from premises in Wrexham.
What type of inspection was carried out?
This was an announced, focused inspection carried out at the agency’s premises in
Wrexham on the 17th March 2015 from 10:00 am to 2:30 pm and was carried out by 1
inspector.
Although the agency is registered with the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales
(CSSIW) to provide domiciliary care, the agency is not providing any domiciliary care to
service users currently. The agency is providing a range of support services to families
with children with disabilities throughout Wales. Those services include youth groups,
individual support sessions with children, young people and young adults (hereafter
referred to as young people) and activity groups. The agency wishes to remain registered
to provide domiciliary care to ensure that the appropriate service can be provided if
commissioned, therefore an annual inspection is required under the Domiciliary Care
Agencies (Wales) Regulations 2004 (the regulations).
As there are no current users of the domiciliary care service, we have focused this
inspection on the theme of quality of leadership and management, to examine whether the
agency is ensuring that it can continue to provide domiciliary care should it be
commissioned to do so in the future.
What does the service do well?
Not applicable to this inspection as the agency is not providing a domiciliary care service
currently.
What has improved since the last inspection?
Not applicable to this inspection.
What needs to be done to improve the service?
We did not identify any areas of concern and we are satisfied that there continues to be
suitable management arrangements in place to provide a domiciliary care service if
commissioned to do so.
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Quality Of Life
The agency is not currently providing a domiciliary care service so we (CSSIW) have not
examined this theme on this occasion. We will be looking at this area in future
inspections if relevant.
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Quality Of Staffing
The agency is not currently providing a domiciliary care service so we (CSSIW) have not
examined this theme on this occasion. We will be looking at this area in future
inspections if relevant.
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Quality Of Leadership and Management
Young people and their parents can be assured that there are people who are
overseeing the service, this is because there are suitable systems in place to monitor
and review the way the service operates.
Young people, their parents, people working in the service or linked to the service can be
confident that there is visible accountability and know that there are people who are
examining how the service functions. The statement of purpose for the service ensures
that people know the name of the responsible person and registered manager for the
service. Information is provided about their qualifications and professional background,
and contact details are provided so that people know who to contact with queries about
the service or to discuss any issues. The registered manager or a senior/principal
support worker attends the reviews of service provision so that young people and their
parents are familiar with them.
The registered manager is responsible for monitoring the operations of the agency as
well as developing service provision. We saw the monthly management reports that the
registered manager provides for the CEO of the organisation, which includes data on
training undertaken by staff and if any complaints have been made. At the end of the
financial year, the registered manager meets with the CEO to set targets for the next
year and discuss the business plan. The registered manager also provides reports to the
commissioning authorities every 3 months.
Young people and their parents can be confident that management will seek out their
views and will be able to actively contribute to the development of the service. The
agency issues questionnaires to young people and parents to seek feedback about the
service they have received. Although not relating to domiciliary care, we viewed 4
parents’ questionnaires, and found that the parents had scored the service highly in all
areas. A letter from a parent commented ‘the service you provide is extremely beneficial
to both the young person and their families’ and referred to the individualised and caring
support that the young person had received.
The registered manager supervises 2 senior support workers and 1 principal support
worker, who supervise the practice of the support workers that have direct contact with
the young people. We spoke with one senior support worker, one support worker and the
administrator for the service. They all confirmed that they receive supervision and annual
appraisals and that they feel valued by management and the agency as a whole, and are
well trained and supported to carry out their duties including domiciliary care should they
be asked to provide that service. The registered manager said that the senior and
principal support workers are supervised monthly, and group supervision sessions are
carried out with casual staff members. We saw records of the contact he has with them in
between supervision meetings with casual staff to evidence that regular communication
is maintained.
We found that training is well organised and monitored, and staff are encouraged to
access external training as the manager alerts them to training opportunities and
authorizes funding in addition to the internal training that is provided. We saw the staff
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training matrix that evidenced that staff have attended appropriate training, including
child protection, first aid, understanding autism and disability induction training. The
registered manager stated that arrangements are made with health professionals to train
staff in areas that are specific to individual service users.
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Quality Of The Environment
This theme is not applicable for a domiciliary care agency.
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How we inspect and report on services
We conduct two types of inspection; baseline and focussed. Both consider the experience
of people using services.
Baseline inspections assess whether the registration of a service is justified and
whether the conditions of registration are appropriate. For most services, we carry out
these inspections every three years. Exceptions are registered child minders, out of
school care, sessional care, crèches and open access provision, which are every four
years.
At these inspections we check whether the service has a clear, effective Statement of
Purpose and whether the service delivers on the commitments set out in its Statement
of Purpose. In assessing whether registration is justified inspectors check that the
service can demonstrate a history of compliance with regulations.
Focused inspections consider the experience of people using services and we will look
at compliance with regulations when poor outcomes for people using services are
identified. We carry out these inspections in between baseline inspections. Focussed
inspections will always consider the quality of life of people using services and may look
at other areas.
Baseline and focused inspections may be scheduled or carried out in response to concerns.
Inspectors use a variety of methods to gather information during inspections. These may
include;
Talking with people who use services and their representatives
Talking to staff and the manager
Looking at documentation
Observation of staff interactions with people and of the environment
Comments made within questionnaires returned from people who use services, staff and
health and social care professionals
We inspect and report our findings under ‘Quality Themes’. Those relevant to each type of
service are referred to within our inspection reports.
Further information about what we do can be found in our leaflet ‘Improving Care and
Social Services in Wales’. You can download this from our website, Improving Care and
Social Services in Wales or ask us to send you a copy by telephoning your local CSSIW
regional office.
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